Here is a peek at her completed lapbook, for those of you new – she is in 1st grade. She put together the front and back all on her own, taping her creations onto the folder. The amphibians on the back were a random image search and a copy/paste job so I don’t have the rights to share those. I just printed images I found for her to color – it was a totally last minute thing she asked for!

The elements in her Lapbook were not planned out well, so we had to get creative fitting them in. Most were actually notebooking pages we used. We got it all stuck in and she loves it, which is what counts!

I made a mini pond out of green, blue and clear water beads and added our frogs to it.

We didn’t follow a strict plan, just read books, watched frog videos, and did some notebooking pages and a comparing frogs and toads mini book. I followed her lead with the activities I chose. I did not print all of our resources ahead of time, I did it day by day based on what we read and what she was interested in. Or animal unit studies are very casual.

We have been studying frogs lately – my daughter’s choice. We have learned a ton and will be sharing a full post of all we used and learned very soon. During our frog unit study we made some frog puppets which were all her idea!

She has these frogs and asked me if we could make a craft to look like them. I quickly thought of the old frog paper bag craft and showed her a bit about how it could be done and then let her go with her ideas. First, she painted each bag to look similar to her favorite frogs.

After the bags dried, we worked together to give them arms, legs and a tongue. I traced the arms and legs with her and we cut them out together I showed her how to curl the tongue on one and she did the rest.

She loved these puppets so much I decided to expand on her interest and throw in more learning fun. I looked up each of the frogs she had chosen and created a simple info card for her to tape to the back of each bag.

She was so excited to learn the real name of each frog and where it lives!

For even more learning fun, we got out our big Little Passportsmap and found where each frog lives.

Her finished frog collection, which will probably stay displayed like this for awhile, she still loves them!

Here’s the printable I made for her featuring her favorite 4 frogs. I included a blank page in case you have different favorites that we didn’t include.

Playful Learning with Spielgaben is our monthly post sharing Spielgaben in action! If you missed the introduction to this series, you can see it here. We were given the Spielgaben set to review and are honored to have them as a blog sponsor.

Lessons We Enjoyed

Speilgaben is a wonderful addition to our 1st grade math curriculum. For now, I am choosing lessons based on her needs. She has mastered many 1st grade level skills so I knew she didn’t need a full 1st grade curriculum. Spielgaben is a great fit for her right now!

Each week I choose lessons or worksheets for her and write them into our lesson plans. Yes, this takes a bit more time than following a pre-written math curriculum, but I want her working on what she needs and will enjoy. I wouldn’t have been as confident in doing this years ago, but now I am after homeschooling 2 other kids at this grade level!

We finished up our work with 3 Dimensional shapes using Worksheet Set 2, Level 3, Activity 5 – Cut in Half {in case you own Spielgaben and are looking for these specific worksheets, I label them like this so you can easily find them}.

This activity was tricky and involved imagining the shape cut in half. and checking what it would look like on the inside.

Worksheet Set 3, Level 3, Activity 1 – How Many Cubes involved focusing on how many blocks were shown on a particular view.

Worksheet Set 3, Level 3, Activity 3 – Stacking Play involved rebuilding figures with cubes and counting how many blocks were used. Before building each one, she guessed by only looking at the worksheet {2D image}. Then she built it and checked her guess.

We are still enjoying our unit study about frogs, so of course we had to build a frog! The Spielgaben Nature Guide {shown below on my iPad} had an adorable frog with tadpoles for her to recreate. I showed her the picture and she gathered the needed pieces and put them in that big blue bowl. Then she built the scene herself.

50% all NEW activities never before featured on Asia’s blog. It also contains favorites from the blog!

120 activities can be completed using items found at a regular grocery store.

Most of the activities were designed to encourage multi-age/sibling play.

All activities are coded and marked with allergy codes to make things easier for those of you with kids who have allergies.

The book is divided into 7 sections, each section contains multiple ideas!

How to Use the Book

Slimes

Doughs

Paints

Small World Play

Simple Sensory Activities

Do-It-Yourself Toys

We have already done many of Asia’s ideas, but when I presented the book to my daughter who is 5, she immediately saw the image on the front cover of the Frog World and wanted to make that, she loves frogs and water.

I must be honest and tell you that the night she asked wasn’t a night I really wanted to dye water blue and cut out foam lily pads. It had been a long emotional day and I was tired. But, I said yes. It didn’t take me long to set both of my kids up with their frog worlds and it gave me about an hour of peace as they played.

They both went on to play with the bins again the next day. The effort I put in at the beginning proved to be totally worth it in the end.

Sometimes I am super creative on my own and other times I feel my brain is dead and completely emptied of all things creative. Asia’s book is a reminder that it doesn’t take much to do something creative like this.

My kids are 5, 8, and 12. The 5 and 8 year old played with the Frog World, extensively. The 12 year old wasn’t home that night but probably would have joined them. My 12 year old has looked through the book and found many ideas he wants to try. It really is a book for a VERY wide age range.

It is a recipe book for me. An easy tool to pull off of the shelf to stimulate my thinking and give me the idea and the recipe all in one place. I am so thankful to Asia for taking the time to write this and know it will bless many people out there, including me!

See more here ~

This awesome book is available worldwide, most of my readers will happily find it on Amazon, there’s a link here to Amazon.

The idea behind “Just Color!” is simple ~ theme packs all focused around coloring. There are mostly coloring pages, and a few coloring activities. The coloring pages are all in one download to make it easier to download and print all at once, in case you have coloring monsters like I do!